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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22865860">A Body's Got a Right to Dream</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinntessentially/pseuds/Quinntessentially'>Quinntessentially</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, Kind of a hockey AU, Not Canon Compliant, i’m bad at descriptions but you should give this a whirl, kind of a highschool AU</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:48:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,857</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22865860</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinntessentially/pseuds/Quinntessentially</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cameron has hockey. He likes his life. He has definitely, 100% moved on from Ferris Bueller.</p><p>Ferris Bueller and his new girlfriend dramatically re-entering his life throws that all in a tailspin.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cameron Frye &amp; Sloane Peterson, Ferris Bueller &amp; Cameron Frye, Ferris Bueller/Sloane Peterson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Body's Got a Right to Dream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title comes from Neil Gaiman's excellent poem "Vampire Sestina". This fic may require some suspension of disbelief with regards to how hockey billeting works.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The most important thing about hockey is. Well, the only thing about hockey that <em>matters</em> is that Cameron loves it. The second most important thing about hockey is that Cameron is fucking good at it.</p><p>The third most important thing is that the sum of the previous two facts mean that Cameron has been uprooted again from his lovely suburb of Detroit and tossed head-first into cold, hard minor-league hockey.</p><p>The most immediately important thing, of course, is that Cameron, at this very moment, is in his goalie pads on the ice, and his coach is reaming him a new one.</p><p>“This is a scrimmage, Frye, and you’re letting in pucks? McGill got in three shots against you with his left goddamn hand. I expect you to be better than this if you ever want to see any ice time. Now stop sitting around with your thumb up your ass and tend goal!” His coach skates away and resumes his post at the edge of the rink, scanning the busy length of the ice.</p><p>McGill— Gilly, really, but Coach Bascom seems vehemently opposed to nicknames, and who is Cam to oppose that— casts him what could be a sympathetic look. Of course, as the team’s best winger, the coach’s fury is rarely directed against him, but the sentiment is nice.</p><p>Cameron nods at him, readjusts his gear, settles further into position. He tries to channel the anger bubbling in his gut into keeping his body alert for the puck, into memorizing the ice beneath his skates. </p><p>The other most important thing about hockey is that even when he loves it, Cameron really, really hates it.</p><p>-X- -X- -X-</p><p>Practice ends, eventually. Cameron only lets in another couple goals, but he’s glad to be off the ice. Gilly slaps him on the back. “Hey, solid work. You want to get a cup of coffee or something after we’re out?”</p><p>Cameron smiles tightly. “I appreciate it, but.. rain check? I— yeah.” It’s hard, sometimes. He’s a senior this year, and keeping up with practice and games and still not flunking? Making time for coffee dates <em>getting coffee</em> Cameron corrects himself. Having a social life will be hard enough. Cameron doesn’t need his… non-straightness getting in the way of his career prospects.</p><p>The drive home is lonely, as always. He’s billeted with some friends of the family, a couple of empty-nesters who seem to hate each other.</p><p>He gets home. The house is empty. He walks to his room. He looks over his summer homework. He watches shit TV. He stretches out again. Nothing at all happens. He sets his alarm. He goes to bed. </p><p>He wakes up to his alarm and gets his gear together into his duffel bag, grabs his backpack, and gets in his car and drives to the rink. If the sun were up, the view would be lovely, he’s sure.</p><p>When he arrives at the rink, he’s fully expecting it to be empty. He’s already worked out a schedule— he gets the rink from 5:00 to 6:30am to practice on his own, to make up for the practice time he misses from being at school.</p><p>He fumbles out the key, unlocks the rink— pauses, because the rink door is already unlocked. He pokes his head in, but the locker rooms are pretty far from the ice itself, and he can’t hear anything.<br/>Maybe the ice crew forgot to lock the door. Maybe a homeless person broke in and is waiting to bean him over the head with an empty bottle. Probably, no one is there at all. Cameron has a sit-down and hates his life.</p><p>Still, he’s in the rink to practice, and if anything is going to make him feel better, it’s being on the ice. He gears up, stretches a little more for luck, heads out to the ice. </p><p>Someone is there. </p><p>She’s wearing black pants, and a black jacket, and her leg is above her head, and she’s spinning faster than seems humanly possible.</p><p>Cameron stares. Clears his throat. The girl turns her head to look at him, and her spin slows until she and Cameron are just staring at each other. </p><p>He clears his throat again. “I think I’m supposed to have the ice now. I’m on the team— I have permission from the rink managers and everything?” </p><p>The girl smiles quietly at him and nods. “I’m afraid I also have permission to be here.”</p><p>“Well, shit.” Cameron belatedly realizes that he probably shouldn’t bust out the cursing in front of strangers who look as middle-class suburban as this girl does, but she doesn’t seem to register it.</p><p>“Can’t we just share the ice? I can probably make my program work with a little less room, and I hope you can make do with half the ice.”</p><p>Cameron nods. “I’ll take left half, you take right?” He takes a moment to be thankful that he was intending to work on his movement and handling this morning. </p><p>“Sounds good.” She skates over to the center of her ice, then slows and yells, “By the way, my name is Sloane!”</p><p>“I’m Cameron!” He yells in return, and finally gets on the ice.</p><p>-X- -X- -X-</p><p>It’s 6:55am, Cameron is running late for school, and Sloane has disappeared at some point between him running drill and him cooling down. He pulls off his gear and chugs a little water, spares a moment to feel bad for whoever has to sit next to him in history. </p><p>Showing up late to the first day of school isn’t going to be a great look, but hey. Maybe they’ll give him detention and he won’t have to go the the house for a bonus hour or two.</p><p>More driving to school. He’s lucky to find a parking spot only a block from school. His watch says it’s 7:18, and Cam has all of seven minutes to get to school and find his classroom. He starts walking a little bit faster, and he’s just reached the front doors when the bell rings.</p><p>He curses quietly and heads inside. </p><p>In a classic stroke of luck, Room 212 is completely across campus and tucked away behind a fucking pavillion, and Cam stands outside it a cool twelve minutes late.</p><p>He’s hit with a blast of cold air from the A/C as soon as he opens the door. The teacher looks at him blankly when he enters, then very obviously realizes that Cameron is his student. “Just take a seat anywhere,” he says, and gestures to the two remaining chairs in the room, one in the middle and one at the back corner.</p><p>Cameron pushes his way up the aisle between the desk pairs and wonders if he’s been labelled a terminal loser yet. He goes for the seat in the middle next to the weird art girl and says a cordial hello.</p><p>The girl glances up, then ignores him for the rest of the period. The teacher has resumed explaining the syllabus. Cam has resumed daydreaming about getting the rink to himself tomorrow morning. Sloane had been nice, but Cam preferred to decompress alone, most of the time.</p><p>Cameron starts packing up when everyone else does, although he barely wrote anything down. Second period is math, which should be a blast and a half. He’s just shoved his folder in his bag when someone looms in front of him and knocks on his desk.</p><p>“Cameron, right? It’s Sloane, from the rink.”</p><p>Cameron slowly looks up. “Heya.” His stomach turns a little. “How are you? I didn’t see you leave the rink.”</p><p>Sloane’s smile quirks at the edges. “Yeah, I guess I left before you. I always need some time to destress after practice— it always makes me so tense, you know?”</p><p>Cameron doesn’t know, not at all, but he nods. This is not a conversation he wants. Cameron would like to put everything on the ice firmly away when he is in his real life. </p><p>Sloane continues, unfazed by or politely ignoring Cameron’s silence. “God Mr. Pullun is such a bore. I had him last year for Lit and I swear, F. Scott Fitzgerald is more interesting than he is.”</p><p>“I’m lucky I moved here when I did, then. Didn’t have to read The Great Gatsby at my old school, so with any luck I won’t have to read it at all.” Cameron stands and hoists his bag. Being late to two classes in a row is not conducive to staying under the radar. “I’ve got math in room… 618 next. What do you have?”</p><p>“US History. Room 3112.” Sloane walks him to the door, then stands still. “I’m that way—” she points “but you’re just over the quad and a few halls down. See you at lunch?”</p><p>Cameron shrugs, nods. “Thanks!” He calls at Sloane’s retreating figure, the pivots and heads to his next class.</p><p>-X- -X- -X-</p><p>Lunch comes slowly, but as soon as it arrives Cameron feels like no time has passed. He makes his way to the cafeteria where Sloane and someone else are sitting at a table. Sloane’s bag is stuck on one of the chairs, but when she sees Cam approach she takes it off and gestures at the now-empty seat.</p><p>Cam sits down, turns to make his introductions, stops dead in his tracks. <br/>Sitting two seats down from him, innocently munching on a shitty french fry, is Ferris goddamn Bueller. </p><p>Sloane pokes Ferris, who absentmindedly gives her a peck on the lips, and Cameron’s throat closes up a little more. He’s glad he sat down already, because he’s not entirely sure his body is under his control. Sloane pokes Ferris again, and he actually looks up this time.</p><p>Cameron makes eye contact with Ferris Bueller for the first time in two and a half years. The tides of frustration and fear rush in, and somehow through it all Cameron remains sitting. </p><p>Ferris’s eyes widen and Cam sees him mouth “what the fuck.” It’s the first time he’s ever really seen Ferris rendered speechless.</p><p>Sloane seems to have picked up on the weird energy at the table, because she scoots her chair back to better look at the two of them.</p><p>“Hi, Ferris,” Cameron whispers. “I’m sorry.” Ferris says nothing.</p><p>Sloane breaks the silence between them with determination. “Do you guys need a minute, or am I staying to play mediator?”</p><p>“Everything is fine,” says Ferris. “You don’t need to mediate or whatever. We used to… be friends with each other. He moved without telling anyone, which includes me.” Cameron is suddenly grateful that he did know Ferris all those years, because otherwise he would never have been able to pick out the tension around Ferris’s jaw, the flatness in his tone. If the way Sloane’s eyebrow has raised is any indication, she’s picked up on it too.</p><p>Cameron chews on his lip, wonders how to explain. “Can we talk about this later?” It’s a weak feint, and he doesn’t expect it to work, but Ferris looks relieved to let the subject drop and Sloane is apparently willing to wait to have her questions answered. </p><p>The rest of lunch passes in a grim silence, punctuated by Sloane’s increasingly noncommittal  attempts at small-talk. Cameron hurries off as quickly as possible when the bell rings, and he hears Ferris and Sloane doing the same.</p><p>-X- -X- -X-</p><p>Practice is after school as usual, but unlike usual, Cameron can’t keep his mind off of Sloane and Ferris. </p><p>His game doesn’t suffer much from it, and Coach Bascom mostly leaves him to practice with the second-string line. He finishes up practice sweaty and not feeling great, and his general apathy must be radiating because not even Perks, the sunniest guy on the team, tries to talk to him.</p><p>The drive home is draining. He wonders if Ferris has changed his phone number since he moved.</p><p>When he gets to the house, it is decidedly not empty. He sits in the car and seethes. </p><p>He wishes he could still be on the ice. He wishes he could stop fucking thinking about Ferris and Sloane. He wishes he hadn’t seen them kiss.</p><p>He takes out his phone and tries calling Ferris’s number.<br/>“Hey Cam, how’s it going?” Ferris’s voice doesn’t even shake. Cam wants that stability.</p><p>“Hey Ferris. Everything is… fine.” </p><p>“Man, you know what I want to do?” Ferris’s voice is just like always, but unlike before Cam wants to sink his fist into Ferris’s teeth just a little more. “I want to get out to the city for a day. Just leave all this shit— all our shit— behind.”</p><p>“Christ, Ferris, it’s the first day of school.”</p><p>“And it’s already so terrible! We’re not learning anything here that we can’t learn better on our own. Come on, we’ll make a day of it.” The worst part is that Cam knows he means it. That he’d leave everything in his life behind in a heartbeat, his parents, his home, his girlfriend, if he thought it meant moving on to something bigger. </p><p>“It’s not like it was when we were fourteen. You can’t say ‘jump’ and I sure as hell won’t say ‘how high.’ You don’t get to drag me places I don’t want to go anymore. I have a life here. I have hockey. Go string Sloane along the same way you strung me.”</p><p>“Hey, you mind leaving her the fuck out of this? Maybe I like dating someone who isn’t such a goddamn wet blanket. You think you’re doing fine? Listen to yourself! Is hockey really your life’s purpose?”</p><p>“At least my goals in life aren’t fucking limited to seeing how fast I can move on from everything I already have.” Cameron spits. “Sometimes the grass is greener over here, and I don’t see why you’re always so eager to reach whatever the fuck the next high is.”</p><p>There’s silence over the line.</p><p>“Cam, why did you move without telling me?”</p><p>Cameron whispers, “I wanted to make you see that sometimes what you have is good enough. And I wanted you to see how it felt when people made decisions about your life for you.”</p><p>“It really fucked me up, Cam. I didn’t know if you were okay, I didn’t know where you were— I know Chicago’s pretty liberal but I know you weren’t out to your parents and. Yeah.” There’s more silence on the line.</p><p>“Ferris, I’m really sorry.” Cameron starts to talk again, stops, restarts. “That was a godawful thing to do. I should have realized you would think I was… you know.”</p><p>“Well, as long as I don’t learn you’re not dead from a <em>postcard</em> again, you should be in the clear. I was a pretty shit friend too. We’ll move on.”</p><p>The air in the car feels clearer, somehow. Maybe it’s just that Cameron feels like he can breathe again.</p><p>“Hey, if you and Sloane ever want to watch one of my games, I can probably get you tickets. To a pre-season game, at least.”</p><p>“That sounds like an excellent way to spend a couple of hours.” Cameron can hear Ferris’s grin over the line, and he feels his own lips turn up too.</p><p>“I should probably go now. Good talking to you.”<br/>“You too.” And then there’s just the dial tone, and Cameron is sitting quietly in his car. He unlocks the door. Takes a breath. Steps out into the world and walks into his house to fall down on his bed and think about what just happened.</p><p>-X- -X- -X-</p><p>The rink is unlocked when Cam tries the door for morning practice, but he’s not surprised. He stretches out, gears up, and nods a hello to Sloane. </p><p>“Ferris told me you two made up,” she calls from across the ice.</p><p>“In a manner of speaking,” Cam says, but his involuntary smile seems to be enough confirmation for her. </p><p>“You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to,” she says.</p><p>“But..?” </p><p>“But I would like to know the whole story at some point.” She skates closer to Cam, who has just gotten on the ice. “It’s been hard enough keeping Ferris grounded at age seventeen, and I’m curious to know how you survived it for years.”</p><p>“Well.” Cameron says wryly. “You can see that our relationship really stood the test of time. But I promise you’ll get the full story. I just think Ferris should be there for it.”</p><p>“You can tell me at lunch.” And with a smile, Sloane glides back to the center of the ice and does an admirable job of ignoring Cam as he drags out the practice goal to refine his shooting technique.</p><p>When the sun’s just peeking into the rink and Cam is swearing about how he bounced his second wrist shot in a row off the top bar, Sloane calls him over to critique her triple flip jump. It devolves into her attempting to teach him a waltz jump, and it’s a full fifteen minutes before he remembers that he has his own practice to do.</p><p>The time passes effortlessly between them, and this time Cameron isn’t so in his head that he misses when she leaves the rink.</p><p>He yells a goodbye at her, and she waves him over. “You know, it’s not half so tiring practicing when I have company on the ice.”</p><p>Cam takes off his helmet and pops out his mouth guard. “You know, I think having you on the ice makes hockey a little more fun too.”</p><p>“No! Really?” She presses an overdramatic hand to her chest like she’s clutching her pearls, and it sets both of them laughing. They bid their goodbyes and Cameron tells himself that there’s no way the rink’s gotten colder since Sloane left.</p><p>-X- -X- -X-</p><p>When Cameron gets to class, a full two minutes early, he sees that Sloane has swapped seats with the weird art girl and they’re now table partners. The teacher calls role and Cameron and Sloane chat idly. Even though the professor spends the whole class period lecturing, when the bell rings, Cam thinks he’s never felt more content.</p><p>He lets the glow from first period carry him through until lunch. He gets to the same table in the cafeteria as yesterday, and sees to his relief that Ferris is there and Sloane is not.</p><p>“I told Sloane that we would tell her the whole story.” Cameron tries and fails to maintain eye contact as he breaks the news. “I figure we should talk about what goes in the whole story.”</p><p>“If this is your roundabout way of asking if Sloane knows I swing both ways, the answer is yes. I think. I figure I’ve said enough flirtatious things about Patrick Swayze that she’ll have connected the dots, and if not, now is as good a time as any to tell her.”</p><p>“Ferris, your nonchalance is infuriating sometimes.”</p><p>Ferris shrugs. “I think now is the time to take the plunge.”</p><p>Cameron bites morosely into a carrot stick. “Then I guess we tell her now.”</p><p>It’s a few more awkward minutes before Sloane walks up, because of course it is. Cameron’s luck, at it again. His one saving grace is that she takes it upon herself to break the silence between them.</p><p>“So, Cameron told me that you would explain what the situation is between you at lunch. Either of you want to start?”</p><p>Cameron stares at Ferris who makes a little “who, me?” gesture but opens his mouth to talk anyways. “Cameron and I have known each other since the second grade. We kissed each other once in the seventh grade, then dated for two years in high school. He then moved away to Detroit without telling me or anyone else, a fact which I found out from a postcard four days later. We have talked the issue out.”</p><p>Sloane sits quietly.</p><p>Cameron adds after a second, “Also, we hid the fact that we were dating from basically everyone. I think four people know that I’m not straight, and three of them are sitting at this table. So if you could not go shouting it to the neighbors, I’d appreciate it. I do kind of want a career in a professional sport.”</p><p>Sloane curls a strand of hair around her finger. “Okay, I think I understand. Just… why didn’t you tell him you were moving in the first place?”</p><p>Cameron shrugs. “I wanted him to take other people’s problems more seriously. Although actually, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure all I accomplished was convincing him that being less attached to anything was the solution.”</p><p>Ferris leans around Sloane to poke Cameron in the arm. “How could you psychoanalyze me like this! Besides, you’re the one who ditched being into me for being into hockey.”</p><p>“Yeah, but I’m <em>good</em> at hockey. I sucked hard at being boyfriends with you.”</p><p>Sloane rolls her eyes. “Is this what I’ve signed myself up for?”</p><p>-X- -X- -X-</p><p>The most important thing about Cameron’s life is that it’s pretty routine, most of the time. His best hours are spent on the ice, and his worst hours are spent at his house, doing math homework. </p><p>Right now it’s one of the good hours. Cam’s on the ice with his team, and they’re facing off against the Phantoms. It’s the second period, and Cam hasn’t let a puck in the net so far. Gilly and Perks are keeping the pressure firmly on the opposite goal. </p><p>Cam keeps half an eye on the clock, and as the minutes wind down, neither team has scored. One of the Phantom’s D-men gets two minutes out for high-sticking, and that’s all the edge Cam’s team needs to score. The rest of the period passes uneventfully, and even though he’s expecting to be switched out for Dells, Coach Bascom keeps him in the goal.</p><p>It’s the third period where the pressure really falls on Cam to maintain their 1-0 lead. It’s in the gaps between the shots on goal that Cameron realizes the frustration and apathy he normally feels when he’s playing with his team is gone.</p><p>He glances, just for a second, to the stand where he knows Ferris and Sloane are sitting. He lets the contentment he feels when he thinks about them keep him grounded in the game.</p><p>The opposing forwards take shot after shot, and Cameron blocks all but one. All he feels is determination to not let his team, his best friends, his most important people, down.</p><p>The last seconds of the third period drain away and the opposing lineman whips a wrist shot. Cam reaches for it, nearly brushes it, and the puck goes in the top shelf anyway. The sirens go off, the ref announces that Cam’s team has lost.</p><p>Cam feels on top of the world anyway. </p><p>He looks up in the stands one last time and waves. Ferris and Sloane wave back. They’ll be waiting for him after he showers. </p><p>Cam cannot wait to see what the three of them will do next.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading this! I haven't written anything this long in a while, but it was a blast falling in love with this fandom. I invite you to leave a kudos or a comment if you liked this!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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